Last one month I could not travel much except for attending a family function at my native place. My hands were feeling itchy, so was my mind to write something different this time. I stay in Mumbai but lately realized that I have never written a line about this fascinating city where almost all my dreams came true. However, every time I would attempt to write something, my mind would be over-cast with Ananya’s recent developments in life. Not that I was too curious to know more about what she shared with me, but somehow this “Ananya” topic turned all my writing thoughts aside. By the way, Ananya (Name changed) is my colleague, in fact a friend luckily found at work. She is from some small town in Karnataka and held more gray matter in the head than me, a metro city brat. We gossip at the cafeteria, laugh aloud over silly jokes, work in close collaboration on a very interesting social media project. So, the bottom-line is we are like-minded and we share an awesome “working friendship” sort of a rapport with no expectation for benefits. She confides in me many a time whenever she is mad at our boss and so do I whenever I am upset at work but we never discussed life, personal life, so to speak until she broke into tears the other day while telling me that she had got divorced two years back over some dowry issues and that's when she decided to come to Mumbai for work and was currently going through another excruciating phase in life. Ananya’s ever smiling charming face was firmer those days. She hardly used to talk or pay attention to any silly talks in office. She was working harder than before. She changed a lot since the time I came back from my native place.
Here in Mumbai, her story started and here is where it all ended:
Roads were packed and disorderly boulevards, with cars and autos, with humans rushing everywhere. No footpaths. The damp streets reflect lights - streetlights, headlights, neon lights, very interestingly mumbainized but failed to catch Ananya’s fancy while sitting in the cool cab. Flashy five-star hotels and residential towers amongst slum clusters. Few minutes in the overbearing humidity of Mumbai and she was soaked in sweat and discontent. The parking space of her new rented apartment in Mumbai had too many cars, not to miss a spanking new white colored Audi beside a shabby old Alto. She was already cursing herself for the whole idea of shifting to this chaotic city from beautiful Bangalore, she could not help but hurriedly took the lift to the sixteenth floor. Her dream of settling down for the rest of the life here kept on diminishing with every passing hot and humid second. She was more eager to take a cold shower and ease her nerves.
Next she recalled feeling lightheaded. Her heart pounded wild, she worried if others could hear. She was on her first team outing at a resort in Thane and there she opened up, all her inhibitions locked in for some time, she instantaneously fell into place with the new set of people, got to know their perspectives of life, mumbaiwalla life, rather. Later that evening more than a few butterflies felt in her stomach. Ananya was actually getting along well with her fresh hindi-speaking Mumbaikar group, especially, with one member of the team “Saket” (name changed) who is a Delhite brought up partially in Mumbai and had mostly worked in Noida office before getting transferred to Mumbai 6 months back and yes, he is an amazing acoustic guitar player; he made Ananya feel more comfortable than she anticipated. Happiness was the mood of the night.
Office, home, cooking and her old love interest in writing continued as a routine for the next few months. And then one day, she received a text on a social networking site from Saket, “hey, what’s up, thought to go out this weekend, friends are all tied up, joining in for dinner on Sunday?” “Wow, he is asking me out”, she exclaimed in joy. A Hindi expression she learned (it translates as: “love opened its arms”) best described what happened next. Ananya felt as if she needed him for air, air of freedom, air of existence, pollution notwithstanding. Instead of focusing on the silver lining that separated their lives (along geographical, racial and marital lines), she chose to focus on his overwhelming accent, mad energy and broad shoulders.
Whatever the inner calling was, her levelheadedness was firmer than she thought. The feeling became docile yet unwavering and his accent could not charm her any longer; her heart was square and yelling “I am not going to fall in love, okay!” One of the last times she saw him, they were sitting on the boulders by the sea, facing each other. The breathtaking sunset at the horizon and that far-fetched idiosyncratic desire called “love” laid its hand out in front of her. And there was this man Ananya could have loved.
Little did Ananya know that a bit of her was devastated until she was dreadfully into tears, inviting hundreds of eyes, fixed at her senseless act of ugly crying at the Mumbai Central Station. She felt drained. Though, inexplicably, she did not die of grief or a collapsed heart. She holidayed. She blogged about her travel experiences. She took some amazing pictures of the sunrise at the beach to boast about. When Ananya came back, she worked harder. She made amazing friends. Ate vada pav million times and loved it. Ever since that day, Mumbai was her home. The minutes. The hours. The seaface. The impossibility and possibility. The sleeplessness. The extremities. The “bring-it-on” frenzy. Everything was hers. Mumbai had grown into her. 2 years consumed. Mumbai could not leave her, neither could she.
What Ananya knows now is that she stays and works in Bristol – with Project on-site team. She dreams of Colaba-Causeway and Bandra-Linking road with loads of stuffed shops squeezed into one tiny lane and cafes, the seaface of the Arabian Sea and the Juhu chatwalla. Seldom, she dreams of love. No pretensions. No protocol. She is living her life, Mumbai way in Bristol, on her own terms.
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